Feels dystopian that they would just, scrub the winning work from the website and physical location without comment, pretending as if it didn't happen.
the fact that he was able to enter at all with a non-photo is proof that Sony is in the wrong, and despite their coverup, is not, in fact, prepared to deal with "black-hat artists" in this space
when an inadequacy makes itself apparent, the decent thing to do is acknowledge it, thank anyone who helped you see it, and try to make it right – Sony did none of these things, and thus are the "indecent" ones here
Sony problem was in not catching someone who wanted to embarrass them. There's not a good way to detect that in advance.
Sony makes cameras; signing the image in the exif with a public key would establish authenticity.
This event isn't likely to spur that change, but it may well come.
The author traveled to the ceremony at his own expense, found that he was not allocated time to speak, then went onstage unannounced to explain his refusal, at which point all physical evidence of his work was removed from the facility, again without comment.
I agree that Sony could have saved itself trouble by requiring the raw camera footage with verifiable exif data.